NewEnergyNews

Gleanings from the web and the world, condensed for convenience, illustrated for enlightenment, arranged for impact...

While the OFFICE of President remains in highest regard at NewEnergyNews, this administration's position on climate change makes it impossible to regard THIS president with respect. Below is the NewEnergyNews theme song until 2020.

WHATElectranet, a decentralized "smart grid" that would allow anyone to set up their own generator and trade in electricity. Despite resistance from utilities and sluggish state bureaucracies, the groundwork is developing for newly designed distribution grids. California has moved to decouple utility revenues from sales. Customers can now get credit for generating their own solar energy.

WHENPerhaps as soon as a decade from now, with changes already beginning.WHEREDevelopments in California lead the nation.

WHY- Digitalization of the electricity grid is overdue. Such a “smart grid” would eliminate the need for new-generation plants, spark widespread use of renewable energy and, ultimately, beat back global warming.- A system that allows your dishwasher or refrigerator to sense changes in the power grid and automatically reduce electricity consumption, or let homeowners see how many kilowatts of electricity they are using at any given minute and adjust their use accordingly is a system that allows greater efficiency and conservation.- Flexibility in the grid will allow the development of renewable but potentially inconsistent energies such as solar and wind.QUOTES- "In the same way the Internet took off and stimulated the information revolution, we could see a revolution all across this country with small-scale generation of electricity everywhere," Gore told a House committee on climate change last week.- "What Gore is talking about is not fantasy," said Joe Ramallo, spokesman for the LADWP.

WHATMercury, a necessary but toxic part of most compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). Commercial recyclers and some municipal waste collection services accept used CFLs, as do some retailers. Advocacy groups are calling on other big chains to participate. Special curbside collections by municipalities, mail-back programs by manufacturers and drop-off programs at various places have also been proposed.

WHENCFL sales are currently booming. It is estimated 150 million were sold in 2006. Wal-Mart alone expects to sell 100 million in 2007.

WHEREScientists and environmentalists fear the used bulbs are ending up in garbage dumps.

WHYThe average CFL contains 5 to 6 milligrams of mercury. Some are less, between 1.23 and 3 milligrams per bulb. But cumulatively, at waste disposal sites, this represents a risk of toxic contamination. On the other hand, there is a cost of between 20 and 50 cents per bulb involved in recycling.QUOTES- Larry Chalfan, executive director of the Zero Waste Alliance environmental group, said the value of the metal, glass and mercury reclaimed from recycling fails to offset the cost of the process. "Someone has to pay," he said. - But, compared with the overall lifecycle cost of buying and using a bulb, recycling would be less than 1 percent, said Paul Abernathy, executive director of the Association of Lighting & Mercury Recyclers, "a small price to keep the mercury out of the environment."- "I have CFLs throughout my house," said Lindberg, who lives in California. "None of them have burned out yet. I can't tell you what I'll do with them when they've burned out, but I won't throw them in the garbage."

WHAT- A 50-year record of air measurements…shows a steady increase in carbon dioxide, with faster growth since 2005…- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 11,140-foot observatory on Mauna Loa has the longest continuous measurements of atmospheric CO2 in the world…

WHEN- During 800,000 years of history recorded in ice cores, including big ice ages every 100,000 years, carbon dioxide cycled from 180 to 280 parts per million molecules of air…- Around 2005, according to NOAA scientists’ readings, atmospheric carbon dioxide went to 380 parts per million…

WHERE- Mauna Loa Observatory, Mauna Loa Peak, Island of Hawaii, state of Hawaii…WHYThe bad news: Increased CO2 is attributable to increases burning of fossel fuels. The good news: Greenhouse gases such as methane and chlorofluorocarbons, controlled by the Montreal Protocol (a 1987 international agreement), have been declining in recent year…

QUOTES- "The de-seasonalized, postindustrial trend in added carbon dioxide has been increasing exponentially, with a doubling time of about 32 years," according to a NOAA report on global CO2 measurements.

WHATAustin Energy, the city’s award-winning utility company, and Roger Duncan, its charismatic deputy manager, are championing the plug-in hybrid auto as a method of expanding the capacity and economic viability of its wind energy resources. Austin Mayor is now on board with the plan and the city has launched Plug-in Partners, a campaign to commit residents to the purchase of the combination electric/internal combustion engine vehicles as soon as they become available. To date, 8000 Austin residents have committed to do so.

WHEN- The idea of tapping the electricity stored in car batteries—called vehicle-to-grid power, or V2G—originated with electrical engineer Willett Kempton in the late 1990s.Optimistic forecasts are for plug-in hybrid vehicles to be widely available within 3 to 5 years, though they are currently available to the ambitious. More information on plug-in hybrid vehicles here. For Austin to install the necessary infrastructure to complete the V2G scheme requires more time.

WHEREAustin, TexasWHY- The effectiveness of renewable energies such as wind and solar is limited by their periodicity: Solar is only available during the day and sometimes the wind does not blow. Because it is not economic to build monstrous batteries, there is no efficient way to store these energies when it is being produced, nor any way to get energy when the sun or wind is unavailable. - Plug-in hybrid vehicles can be engineered to download and hold electricity. A city full of them becomes a network of energy storage units, though the city would have to be wired to allow the vehicles to plug in ubiquitously. Because the average vehicle is only driven three hours a day or less, if it is plugged into the network the other 21 hours of the day it can hold energy generated by a utility from sun or wind until it is needed and then give it up to the network grid. On-board computers, working in conjunction with a utility’s centralized controller, can make sure the vehicle retains all the charge in its battery required by the driver. QUOTES- “ ‘I said to myself, “Wait a minute, this is a big storage system,”’ Dr. Kempton recalls.”- “Developing the plug in battery ‘is the biggest show stopper, if you want to call it that,’ says Ahmad Pesaran, a battery expert at the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. - “Auto makers haven’t said when plug-ins will reach market, but Mayor Wynn says Austin’s City Council has already set aside $1 million to fund rebates for the first 1,000 residents to buy plug-ins. The city intends to change building codes to require plugs in municipal parking lots, with Internet connections to Austin Energy. After that, the mayor explains, ‘we’ll be able to start harvesting parking garages.’”

WHATToday’s titans, a whole new group of key global oil and gas companies selected recently by the Financial Times, are largely state-owned companies from the emerging world. The still extant descendants of the OLD Seven Sisters are ExxonMobil and Chevron in the U.S., England’s BP and Europe’s Royal Dutch Shell. They produce only about 10% of the world's oil and gas and hold just 3% of its reserves.

WHENThe International Energy Agency [IEA] calculates that over the next 40 years, 90% of new energy supplies will come from developing countries.

WHEREThese National oil companies are largely from the emerging world and developing countries.

WHYThe FT ranked them on the basis of resource base, level of output, company's ambition, scale of their domestic market, and influence in the industry. The New Seven Sisters control about one-third of the world's oil and gas production and reserves.QUOTES- “With 25% of the world's oil reserves and with nearly triple the capacity of any other group, Saudi Aramco is the world's largest and most sophisticated national oil company.” - “The poster child of irresponsible profligacy is President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela who spends two-thirds of PDVSA's profits on his populist social programs. The result? PDVSA's production capacity has fallen from 3.4 to 1.5 million barrels per day since 1999. In Iran, NIOC cannot boost its oil production or fix its refineries because its profits go toward keeping gas at 40 cents per gallon for Iranian consumers.”- “The IEA estimates that the world is falling 20% short of making the investment needed to ensure adequate energy supplies for the next 25 years.”

WHATTesting of the next generation Northwind turbines, which stand about 150 feet off the ground and generate about 100 kilowatts on average. WHENPresently being sent for testing.

WHEREThe turbines, designed and built at Northern Power in Barre Town, Vt., will be shipped to Golden, Colo. to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

WHYThe Northwest turbines are specially designed to accommodate small villages, farms and rural areas that are too remote to be connected to the grid. The new design is smaller and uses less materials so its more cost competitive at between $250,000 and $350,000 per unit. The turbines are used to produce electricity for households as well as to power water treatment facilities.QUOTESCraig Giles, product manager at Northern, suggested the turbines could be used to offset up to about 50 percent of diesel use in places like the islands off South Korea's shores, or Alaskan villages.

WHOU.S. college students, UC Berkeley energy professor Dan Kammen, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business professor Christine RosenWHATMore American college students are choosing courses on clean energy technologies and environment-related subjects.- “The number of Berkeley undergraduates enrolled in introductory energy courses has almost tripled and a new graduate class in solar photovoltaics signed up 70 students, the largest course in recent memory at UC's College of Engineering.”

WHENAccording to Professor Kammen, there has been a significant and noticeable enrollment increase in these fields in the last two years.

WHEREUC Berkeley, Stanford University, Middlebury College, Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Williams College, Illinois State University, and the University of California at Davis, among many others.

WHYStudents see venture capital moving to companies and jobs developing renewable and alternative energies. Projects such as nanotech solar cells and biofuels generated by enzymes and termites win funding. These young people see an opportunity to prosper and do good.QUOTES- "Students see an opportunity for challenging jobs and a way to do some good for the planet," Dan Kammen, an energy professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said.- "The environment is incorporated into every aspect of the world. The program gives you the opportunity to consider environmental consulting or working for alternative energies or corporate social responsibility," [Daniela Salaverry, a Middlebury grad who works on environmental programs in China for San Francisco-based Pacific Environment,] said.

WHATThe man once expected to take over SAP has left the software maker to initiate projects in clean technology.WHENHis resignation will take effect at the end of the week of March 26-31.

WHERESAP corporate HQ is in Germany, a world leader in alternative and renewable energies.

WHYAgassi's peers at SAP expect him to form an alternative energy start-up. SAP recently extended the contract of CEO Henning Kagermann. Agassi had expected to be promoted to that position.

QUOTES"I look forward to new opportunities, and working on issues that are important to me, including alternative energy and environmental policy issues, as well as the future of Israel," [Agassi] said.

WHOEnvironment ministers from Austria, Iceland, Ireland and NorwayWHATIn a joint statement, the four ministers from the non-nuclear countries said the "inherent risks and problems associated with the nuclear energy option remain and it can not therefore claim to be a clean alternative to fossil fuel use."

WHENThe statement was made following a meeting on Monday, March 26, 2007.

WHEREDublin, Ireland

WHY- Health and environment risks associated with nuclear energy reach beyond borders and governments in countries with nuclear power need to ensure that other countries' concerns are considered.- International liability protections for the nuclear industry do not provide full compensation for potential damage and injury and this constitutes a hidden subsidy, according to the ministers.- The problem of nuclear waste remains intractable. There is no long-term solution.QUOTES"…for Ireland, Iceland, Norway, and Austria, we voice serious concern that nuclear energy is being presented as a solution to climate change…It is our collective view that the current debate seeks to downplay the environmental, waste, proliferation, nuclear liability and safety issues and seeks to portray nuclear energy as a clean, safe and problem free response to climate change."- "Nuclear waste reprocessing…has long since lost its lustre and today the industry remains economically and environmentally untenable."

This article represents the worst kind of journalism, Bill O’Reilly chicanery in print, an attempt to invent a controversy. Its going to take every kind EROEI + energy to move ahead in the 21st century.

WHATAlternative and renewable energies, contending for research and development grants and funds, comment on one another’s strengths and weaknesses. The article’s author attempts to make it sound controversial.

WHENOn-going debates moving in the direction of enlightenment.

WHERENationally and internationally.WHYIs it true, as the article suggests, that a gain for one technology is a loss for others? No.Solar energy is not, as one of the article’s quotes suggests, a “fraud” but it is still in development. Corn ethanol is probably of limited merit but second generation ethanol, called cellulosic, may have value and ethanol from animal waste may be the best kind. Though not perfected, rechargeable batteries for autos, in conjunction with the internal combustion engine, are available now and are the bridge to the future. Hydrogen is a fine fuel but expensive.

QUOTESThe future will not be dominated by one fuel but will be the domain of many alternatives.

WHOJapan government long-term energy planners and 1.8 million Japanese citizens who have pledged to take six steps, such as turning off lights, to meet energy conservation goals. WHATJapan's energy consumption as a percentage of gross domestic product is the lowest in the world. Japan has kept energy use down and kept the comforts of an affluent society. Per capita consumption of energy is nearly half that in the United States, but per capita incomes are comparable. Japan's economy is the world’s second largest. Japan has fully internalized the wisdom of restricting energy imports.

WHENPresently.

WHEREGovernment campaigns for energy conservation are omnipresent.

WHY- The national expression of concern for the earth dovetails nicely with the traditional Japanese reverence for nature…- The Japanese have invented their way out of energy abuse…Toyota and Honda have provided hybrid cars…Four of the world's five largest producers of solar panels are Japanese…- Gasoline is taxed…Subways are fast, clean, and relatively inexpensive…Long-distance travel by the Shinkansen bullet train is preferable to flying…QUOTES- "This is a problem of moral dimensions," said Japan's minister of environment, Masatoshi Wakabayashi. With a green feather in his lapel and a copy of Al Gore's book on his desk, Wakabayashi is a bureaucrat with a cause. "I think we are receiving the message that our mother earth is in crisis," he said. "We have a common consciousness of this fact."- There is a growing movement called "watashi no hashi" ("my chopsticks") that urges people to carry their own into restaurants so as to cut down on the waste of the disposable kind.- Takayuki Uedo, manager of the New and Renewable Energy Division of Japan's natural resources agency: "We are 20 years ahead of the EU countries."

WHATThe controversy over a proposal to build about 50 windmills: Supporters say wind provides energy without negatives such as greenhouse gases that make for global warming, while critics say it delivers only a quarter of its promised energy while lethal to wildlife and a blight on the landscape.

WHEN

WHEREThe San Gorgonio Pass, a blustery stretch of desert above the 10 Freeway two hours east of Los Angeles, where many of the world's first power-producing windmills were built, next to Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument.

WHY- The wind energy industry, born in California, now has projects in 40 states and, in the last two years, $8 billion in investments.- San Gorgonio Pass is one of the windiest spots in North America.- Development on the squall-scoured mesa is reported to be impossible due to winds that would virtually destroy anything on site.- The 3,000 existing turbines produce enough energy to power almost 25,000 homes for a year, said California Energy Commission spokeswoman Amy Morgan. But that is a fraction of their advertised capacity.- Critics argue that wind projects subsidized with public funds ($93.8 million in subsidies from California ratepayers) deliver less power than advertised. In 2003, San Gorgonio wind farms claimed 413 megawatts of capacity but generated a quarter of that. (Advocates reference greater potential from newer machines.) Among the negatives are accidents (turbines as big as minivans have caught fire in midair and crashed 200 feet to the earth), breakdowns (broken propeller blades), harm to wildlife ( hawks, eagles and songbirds have been ground up by turbines at other sites), objectionable noise and light (a ceaseless high-pitched whine from windmills and bright, revolving night lights) and loss of recreational lands. - Claude Kirby, a real estate agent for the Palm Springs office of the Bureau of Land Management, said he is proud of the leases he has for 1,224 turbines on 3,589 acres, netting the public annual rent of $640,610, adding, "I'd rather see wind turbines than black smoke from a coal plant."QUOTES- …rich liberals are all for alternative power providing it doesn't mar their views.- "They're going to take a national monument … and turn it into an industrial slum," [homeowner Les] Starks shouted, his voice nearly drowned by blustery gusts as he eyed the stark mountain front soaring above Palm Springs…"They want to bulldoze that mesa, put in these enormous wind turbines … and make lots and lots of money."- "We've got windmills to the north of us, windmills to the east and west of us, windmills everywhere but to the south," [windmill installation landowner Steve Christensen] said. "Why are they picking us out?"- "You can build wind facilities in bad places," said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, a fan of wind energy who contends that a national monument is an inappropriate setting.

WHATThe congressional subcommittee is investigating claims of the university’s scientist to have generated nuclear fusion in a desktop experiment. Nuclear fusion, explained in detail here, is the coming together of atomic nuclei to propagate the release of energy, as is done by the sun when it releases heat and light. Extensive research has so far failed to do what Taleyarkhan claims, which is to have used sound waves to generate temperatures hot enough for hydrogen atoms to meld and release energy.

WHENTaleyarkhan began publishing the work in 2002.

WHERE

WHYExtensive government funding has been expended attempting to validate the possibility of fusion. Published U.C.L.A. research argues that what Dr. Taleyarkhan took as evidence of fusion consisted of emissions from a piece of californium, a radioactive element stored in Dr. Taleyarkhan’s laboratory. A LeTourneau University researcher claims to have reproduced Dr. Taleyarkhan’s findings using the Purdue lab and equipment.QUOTES“There’s enough in published reports and in talk in the scientific community to raise questions,” said Representative Brad Miller, the North Carolina Democrat who is chairman of the subcommittee…In view of the billions of dollars the government spends on scientific research, Mr. Miller said, “we need to know we are getting valid sound research and not research that is being manipulated.”

WHATA 45-minute meeting in which Bush reiterated support for using more ethanol and other renewable fuels. After the meeting, the CEOs showed off alternative-fuel models: Ford's Edge HySeries hydrogen plug-in hybrid concept, an E85-capable Chevrolet Impala and a diesel Jeep Grand Cherokee fueled with 5% biodiesel, a mix of 95% petroleum-based diesel and 5% diesel made without petroleum. (Ford has no plans to manufacture the Edge HySeries but hopes to use a similar drivetrain in some other vehicle in the future.)

WHEN- The CEOs told the president that half the vehicles they manufacture will be compatible with E85 fuel, a blend of 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol, by 2012.

WHEREThe meeting took place at the White House and was followed by photo-ops at a display of alternative fuel vehicles on the White House driveway.

WHY- The president's 20 in 10 plan would cut U.S. gasoline consumption 20% in 10 years by using more non-petroleum fuels such as ethanol, and boosting fuel economy standards.- Ethanol has less energy than gasoline, so vehicles get worse fuel economy running on E85. Federal fuel-economy regulations give automakers extra mileage credit for ethanol-compatible vehicles, called flexible-fuel vehicles, to help balance that.QUOTES- Joan Claybrook, head of Public Citizen, says, "Automakers fool consumers into thinking they are helping the environment and lessening our dependency on foreign oil, while they manipulate the (fuel economy) loophole, avoid meeting federal fuel economy standards and laugh their way to the bank."- "We are absolutely on the edge of being able to move into a new era with flex-fuel, a lot of developments in batteries and hybrids," said GM CEO Rick Wagoner. "We ought to stick with that and play it hard. This is a real opportunity."

WHOArizona utilities, energy consumers, energy authorities and decision makers.WHATThe potential of Arizona to become "the Middle East of solar energy" by institution of legislation and financial incentives for the installation of every solar option, from business and residential photovoltaic installations as well as solar heating systems.Additionally, the creation of such large scale resources as Arizona Public Service (APS) Co.’s solar energy plant northwest of Tucson, a 14-acre, $6 million plant which will produce 1.3 megawatts (enough to supply 200 to 250 homes) with six rows of parabolic mirrors to track the sun, concentrate sunlight on steel tubes, and heat mineral oil in the tubes to 600 degrees Fahrenheit which heats a second fluid that vaporizes, producing steam to spin an electric turbine. And Tucson Electric Power Co.’s 2.4-megawatt solar facility near its coal-fired plant in Springerville.

WHENPresently developing. By 2025, APS plans to get up to 15 percent of its power from solar, wind and other renewable sources.

WHEREAcross the sun-drenched state of Arizona.

WHY- Arizona is widely touted as the sunniest state in the nation although solar energy accounts for less than 1 percent of its commercial power.- "The world is moving toward a place where there will be a tax on pollutants, taxes that get passed onto the customer," [Valerie Rauluk, a member of the Tucson-Pima Metropolitan Energy Commission] said. "We are going to have to pay one way or the other. But by aggressively going heavily into solar energy, we are providing a hedge against those rising prices of the future."QUOTES- For Arizona to go solar, government incentives would be necessary, said Colleen Crowninshield, coordinator of the Clean Cities program for Pima County. - "The solar-energy industry is ready to do it," said Valerie Rauluk, a member of the Tucson-Pima Metropolitan Energy Commission. "We are just waiting to get those rules in place…One way is with a solar farm and another is to put solar panels on the roofs of large building such as Wal-Marts and Home Depots," Rauluk said. "Such installations would substantially cut fossil-fuel energy consumption and help those customers shave peak power needs."

WHOAshti Hawrami, energy minster of the Kurdistan Regional Government.WHATThe Kurdistan Regional Government has signed contracts to develop the large oil reserves it has and will sign more deals with international oil companies, regardless of the status of Iraq's draft hydrocarbons law.

WHEN5 contracts signed, 10 more to be developed by the end of the year. Best case, the Iraq law will be approved by end of May.

WHEREThe semi-autonomous northern Iraq region of Kurdistan.WHYIraq's draft hydrocarbons law hasn't been taken up by the Parliament yet, and there are some tough issues still to be addressed which could stall the draft law's approval. If it is, it would detail how international companies could invest in Iraq's 115 billion barrels of proven reserves, the third most in the world. But the security conditions in Iraq would need to be improved before any people or capital is put on the ground in Iraq. Aside from the oil pipeline from Kirkuk, in Iraq's north, to ports in Turkey, which is attacked so much it is offline more than operational, Kurdistan has been relatively free of violence.

QUOTES"We are in discussions with a number of other companies," Hawrami said. "It is more likely that the contractors will come (to Kurdistan) to start with and set up a base to hopefully then invest in the rest of Iraq."

WHOA group of Virginia Tech engineering students; Getongoroma, a remote southwestern Kenyan village; Rev. Thorney Kirk, an independent minister; Virginia Tech academic adviser Uri Vandsburger and Virginia Tech graduate student advisor Mark Showalter.WHATTo make things like taking X-rays and refrigerating vaccines at the Kenyan clinic possible, Virginia Tech engineering students have created a prototype system designed to provide about 24 kilowatt hours of solar energy daily (it needs about 18 kilowatt hours daily to function). Solar panels would absorb sunlight during the day, convert it to electricity, store it in batteries and distribute it through a breaker box and outlets in the clinic walls. The students need about $120,000 to build and ship the equipment to Kenya. Funding requests have been turned down.

WHENDeveloping presently.

WHEREVirginia Polytechnical Institute and State University; Getongoroma, a remote southwestern Kenyan village

WHYThe clinic in Getongoroma is about an hour from the nearest power grid. Its only electricity comes from small solar panels that power a few light bulbs so patients can be treated at night. The Rev. Thorney Kirk, an independent minister, has been coordinating efforts between Tech and the clinic to create more power.QUOTES"You can look at the numbers and get an idea of what kind of an impact you're going to have," said Garrett Bradley, one of the students who made the trip. "But when you actually see people's faces and talk to people and see the smiles on people's faces, you realize it's real life."

WHATA $500 million, 10 year grant from BP to fund a new multidisciplinary Energy Biosciences Institute, principally for biofuels research.

“This is shameful. The core mission of Berkeley is education, open knowledge exchange and objective research, not making money or furthering the interests of a private firm.”

WHENAnnounced February 1, 2007.

WHERE

WHY- Cal and other universities are increasingly desperate for research dollars. Cal and the University of Illinois and took the BP money even though it means allowing 50 BP scientists to work with academic scientists on their campuses in private labs where all the research would be proprietary and confidential. BP will influence the selection of the director and other high-level positions and, therefore, have leverage over research agendas and funding allocations to 25 labs across many departments. Unlike other university researchers, the 50 BP scientists will have no obligation to publish their work. The universities must share intellectual property rights and commercial licenses with BP. All this raises questions of intellectual integrity.- “Californians need to know that their public university is dedicated to pursuing the best science, not just science that generates profits for BP.”QUOTES- Robert Reich, former secretary of labor and now a professor of public policy at Berkeley, has warned that — because of its size and commercial scope — the BP alliance could be either "a huge feather in Berkeley's cap or a huge noose around Berkeley's neck."- UC President Robert Dynes: "It is my belief," he said, "that we are reinventing the research university in this public-private partnership." Washburn: “Five hundred million dollars is a nice chunk of change, but does any amount of money justify "reinventing" UC Berkeley's academic integrity?”

WHENIf all nuclear power stations were closed by 2015, instead of the planned date of 2020, Germany could still reduce its CO2 emissions by 40 percent.

WHEREGermany. The plan is a potential model for other EU countries.WHY- Shutting down the country's nuclear plants would indirectly have a positive effect on emissions by encouraging the energy industry to develop new technology.- Germany could achieve the reduction by using renewable energy to generate one fifth of its heating needs and one third of its electricity by 2020.

QUOTES"There can be no more excuses, a 40-percent cut by 2020 is achievable," said Greenpeace Germany's energy expert Andree Boehling.

WHATCrude oil jumped above $62 a barrel and gasoline prices surged to a seven-month high in New York after Iran seized 15 British naval personnel.

WHENHostages were taken Friday, March 23, 2007.

WHEREPrices jumped on the NewYork Merchantile Exchange. The British sailors were taken in the Persian Gulf along the disputed line between Iranian and Iraqi territory.WHYIncreased tension in the Persian Gulf threatens the availability of crude supplies.

QUOTESTom Bentz, an oil broker with BNP Paribas in New York: "Worries that Iran would take oil off the market because of the nuclear dispute have been pushing prices higher for a while now. We are in a world that can't afford to have any supply taken off the market."

Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars that will ReCharge America by Sherry Boschert: "Smart companies plan ahead and try to be the first to adopt new technology that will give them a competitive advantage. That’s what Toyota and Honda did with hybrids, and now they’re sitting pretty. Whichever company is first to bring a good plug-in hybrid to market will not only change their fortune but change the world."

Oil On The Brain; Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline by Lisa Margonelli: "Spills are one of the costs of oil consumption that don’t appear at the pump. [Oil consultant Dagmar Schmidt Erkin]’s data shows that 120 million gallons of oil were spilled in inland waters between 1985 and 2003. From that she calculates that between 1980 and 2003, pipelines spilled 27 gallons of oil for every billion “ton miles” of oil they transported, while barges and tankers spilled around 15 gallons and trucks spilled 37 gallons. (A ton of oil is 294 gallons. If you ship a ton of oil for one mile you have one ton mile.) Right now the United States ships about 900 billion ton miles of oil and oil products per year."

NOTEWORTHY IN THE MEDIA:
NewEnergyNews would welcome any media-saavy volunteer who would like to re-develop this section of the page. Announcements and reviews of film, television, radio and music related to energy and environmental issues are welcome.

Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades by Mark S. Friedman

OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades, the second volume of Herman K. Trabish’s retelling of oil’s history in fiction, picks up where the first book in the series, OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction, left off. The new book is an engrossing, informative and entertaining tale of the Roaring 20s, World War II and the Cold War. You don’t have to know anything about the first historical fiction’s adventures set between the Civil War, when oil became a major commodity, and World War I, when it became a vital commodity, to enjoy this new chronicle of the U.S. emergence as a world superpower and a world oil power.

As the new book opens, Lefash, a minor character in the first book, witnesses the role Big Oil played in designing the post-Great War world at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Unjustly implicated in a murder perpetrated by Big Oil agents, LeFash takes the name Livingstone and flees to the U.S. to clear himself. Livingstone’s quest leads him through Babe Ruth’s New York City and Al Capone’s Chicago into oil boom Oklahoma. Stymied by oil and circumstance, Livingstone marries, has a son and eventually, surprisingly, resolves his grievances with the murderer and with oil.

In the new novel’s second episode the oil-and-auto-industry dynasty from the first book re-emerges in the charismatic person of Victoria Wade Bridger, “the woman everybody loved.” Victoria meets Saudi dynasty founder Ibn Saud, spies for the State Department in the Vichy embassy in Washington, D.C., and – for profound and moving personal reasons – accepts a mission into the heart of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. Underlying all Victoria’s travels is the struggle between the allies and axis for control of the crucial oil resources that drove World War II.

As the Cold War begins, the novel’s third episode recounts the historic 1951 moment when Britain’s MI-6 handed off its operations in Iran to the CIA, marking the end to Britain’s dark manipulations and the beginning of the same work by the CIA. But in Trabish’s telling, the covert overthrow of Mossadeq in favor of the ill-fated Shah becomes a compelling romance and a melodramatic homage to the iconic “Casablanca” of Bogart and Bergman.

Monty Livingstone, veteran of an oil field youth, European WWII combat and a star-crossed post-war Berlin affair with a Russian female soldier, comes to 1951 Iran working for a U.S. oil company. He re-encounters his lost Russian love, now a Soviet agent helping prop up Mossadeq and extend Mother Russia’s Iranian oil ambitions. The reunited lovers are caught in a web of political, religious and Cold War forces until oil and power merge to restore the Shah to his future fate. The romance ends satisfyingly, America and the Soviet Union are the only forces left on the world stage and ambiguity is resolved with the answer so many of Trabish’s characters ultimately turn to: Oil.

Commenting on a recent National Petroleum Council report calling for government subsidies of the fossil fuels industries, a distinguished scholar said, “It appears that the whole report buys these dubious arguments that the consumer of energy is somehow stupid about energy…” Trabish’s great and important accomplishment is that you cannot read his emotionally engaging and informative tall tales and remain that stupid energy consumer. With our world rushing headlong toward Peak Oil and epic climate change, the OIL IN THEIR BLOOD series is a timely service as well as a consummate literary performance.

Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction by Mark S. Friedman

"...ours is a culture of energy illiterates." (Paul Roberts, THE END OF OIL)

OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, a superb new historical fiction by Herman K. Trabish, addresses our energy illiteracy by putting the development of our addiction into a story about real people, giving readers a chance to think about how our addiction happened. Trabish's style is fine, straightforward storytelling and he tells his stories through his characters.

The book is the answer an oil family's matriarch gives to an interviewer who asks her to pass judgment on the industry. Like history itself, it is easier to tell stories about the oil industry than to judge it. She and Trabish let readers come to their own conclusions.

She begins by telling the story of her parents in post-Civil War western Pennsylvania, when oil became big business. This part of the story is like a John Ford western and its characters are classic American melodramatic heroes, heroines and villains.

In Part II, the matriarch tells the tragic story of the second generation and reveals how she came to be part of the tales. We see oil become an international commodity, traded on Wall Street and sought from London to Baku to Mesopotamia to Borneo. A baseball subplot compares the growth of the oil business to the growth of baseball, a fascinating reflection of our current president's personal career.

There is an unforgettable image near the center of the story: International oil entrepreneurs talk on a Baku street. This is Trabish at his best, portraying good men doing bad and bad men doing good, all laying plans for wealth and power in the muddy, oily alley of a tiny ancient town in the middle of everywhere. Because Part I was about triumphant American heroes, the tragedy here is entirely unexpected, despite Trabish's repeated allusions to other stories (Casey At The Bat, Hamlet) that do not end well.

In the final section, World War I looms. Baseball takes a back seat to early auto racing and oil-fueled modernity explodes. Love struggles with lust. A cavalry troop collides with an army truck. Here, Trabish has more than tragedy in mind. His lonely, confused young protagonist moves through the horrible destruction of the Romanian oilfields only to suffer worse and worse horrors, until--unexpectedly--he finds something, something a reviewer cannot reveal. Finally, the question of oil must be settled, so the oil industry comes back into the story in a way that is beyond good and bad, beyond melodrama and tragedy.

Along the way, Trabish gives readers a greater awareness of oil and how we became addicted to it. Awareness, Paul Roberts said in THE END OF OIL, "...may be the first tentative step toward building a more sustainable energy economy. Or it may simply mean that when our energy system does begin to fail, and we begin to lose everything that energy once supplied, we won't be so surprised."

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